Harrison Maverick did not need this today. He very much did not need any of this whatsoever.

“What are you talking about, Dad?” he asked with his voice thin and stressed while his fist strangled the phone.

“Well, son,” his father’s voice came slightly crackled through the earpiece, “We’re having the east wing renovated and Mindy’s brothers and their families have all filled up the west wing so I’m afraid there is just no room for you here at the moment.”

Nodding, Harrison groaned, “Thanks, Dad. I’ll call again soon. Bye.” He slammed the phone down on the receiver and sighed, “Great to know you’ll always be there for me.” He ran a hand through his wavy dark brown hair with its off-centered part, keeping the strands away from his chocolate colored eyes as he perused his surroundings.

The back room of his store, Turtle, was full of clutter and boxes. He sat at a cheap aluminum desk with a cheap aluminum folding chair. The desktop was covered in stacks of unsorted paper, a laptop, and a yellowed old phone. He sneered at it and went out into the main room. No one was in the store except his employee and My Chemical Romance played softly over the sound system.

“Man, boss,” Jimmy, the guy working the front counter of the store said to him as he walked over, “You look like you need to get laid.”

Harrison rolled his eyes, annoyed at the pathetic irony of that statement, seeing as trying to get laid had gotten him into this situation in the first place.

When he’d moved into an apartment with his best friend, Grant, five years ago, everything had worked out perfectly. His business was flourishing, he had a place that was by all rights his own, and, most importantly, he was away from his family.

Of the many wives of Charles Maverick, Harrison was the spawn of number five. His newest, a very young ‘Mindy,’ was number nine. So far she’d lasted the longest, despite being twenty when she’d married Charles, who had been at the ripe old age of fifty-eight.

Harrison loathed his father and after the divorce, his mother had wanted nothing to do with her ex-husband or the child she had bore for him. So he had been abandoned, left to fend for himself while his father moved from wife to wife. In fact, the only person who had ever watched out for him had been his older brother, Preston, Charles’ first and favorite son, product of his first wife, Sally, who had died. But Preston had been 13 years older than him, so when Harrison was 8, Preston was 21 and moving out of the house.

“Any luck with your living situation?” Jimmy asked as he organized a rack of CDs.

Harrison sighed, “I have no luck whatsoever.”

Jimmy smiled and laughed a little bit while Harrison sat on the stool behind the register and frowned.

For all of the five years he’d lived with Grant, he had never brought anyone home. He would occasionally go out to a bar or club and go home with a woman he would meet there, but he never brought them home. Grant was constantly bringing women home, at least twice a week, and they would be loud and obnoxious. Harrison didn’t ever complain, he’d just come work at the store all night.

So the one time Harrison feels the need to try something new, such as sex with a man, and knows he would never be comfortable enough to do such a thing in some stranger’s home, Grant just has to walk in a freak out. And then he kicked Harrison out of the apartment. Harrison had been homeless for a whole week.

Last resort time was quickly approaching. Grant had given him 2 weeks to get his stuff out of the apartment or he was donating all of it to the Salvation Army.

He picked up the cordless phone from next to the register and began walking around the store and dialed. He held the phone to his ear as he adjusted as sign telling shoplifters to go to some big-name chain store that could afford a few missing CDs.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Melanie, its Uncle Harrison,” he said, “Is your Dad there?”

“Yeah, just a sec, Uncle Harry.”

Harrison winced at the sound of ‘Uncle Harry.’ He hated that name. He heard his 13-year-old niece shout ‘Dad’ and waited.

“What’s wrong, Harrison?” Preston’s voice asked, sounding exasperated.

Instantly, Harrison felt guilty. He was a grown man and he couldn’t deal with his own problems, always running to big brother to make everything better. “Nothing. Never mind. I just called to say ‘hi’. So hi. Bye.” He hung up quickly and continued straightening posters around the store.

He glanced at his watch. It was a little after seven-thirty. They closed at nine. All he wanted to do was go home and sleep. Unfortunately, he didn’t have a home to go to.

At that point, a large group of high-school kids entered the store. Harrison held a groan inside.

“Hey, guys,” he said with false cheer, “How’s it going?”

Scattered replies of ‘good’ came.

He walked over to them, hooking the phone on his belt, “Anything I can help you with?”

“We were just wondering what the heck this place is,” said a girl. There were seven of them, three girls and four boys.

“Turtle,” he replied, “This place is Turtle.”

They all just looked very confused.

“It’s the best place on the planet,” said Jimmy, talking loudly while opening a large box of CDs to be put out on the floor. “We sell new and used CDs and DVDs, along with various drinks, snack items, magazines, and comic books. This is pretty much a place where you can get whatever you want and hang out, too.”

Harrison nodded. Jimmy was much better at describing things than he was.

The kids ended up staying and buying some drinks. They looked at the CDs and movies for a short while then sat in the couch/beanbag area near the front of the store.

Harrison went behind the counter and started pricing a bunch of used stuff that we’d gotten today.

“Hey,” one of the guys said, “Do you have CDs from The Mars Volta?”

Harrison frowned and turned to the register, pulling up the data base on the computer screen. “Hm,” he mumbled, feeling the need to make some sort of noise as he typed the band name, “We have one new copy of De-Loused in the Comatorium and two used.”

“Do you have any of the newest one?”

“I think we’re getting a few copies of Frances the Mute in our next shipment if you’d like to reserve one.” Harrison answered

“Yeah, that’d be great,” said the guy. He took his name and phone number and gave him the total and he went back to where his friends were sitting. Harrison watched him walk before his attention was stolen by Preston entering the store. He struggled not to voice his frustration.

“Why did you call me?” he asked, leaning up against the counter.

Harrison rolled his eyes, “Nothing, so go home.”

“You always call when something bad happens or you need help. You always come over when something good happens. You always e-mail when you feel lonely or sad or just like talking to me. I have you worked out to a fine science, Harrison,” Preston said harshly, “Now tell me what happened.”

This felt way too much like an adult chastising a petulant child, “Grant kicked me out of the apartment. I’ve been… living out of my truck for a week. Dad can’t put me up since they’re doing renovations and housing the bimbo’s redneck brothers. I need a place to stay till I can something more permanent.”

Preston sighed and put his hand over his eyes, “Why did Grant kick you out?”

Harrison frowned. He really did not want Preston to ask that, and even less wanted to tell him the answer. If his best friend hated him for it, why wouldn’t his already annoyed half-brother?

“Um, I’d rather not talk about it right now,” he replied.

Preston frowned at him and sighed, “I’ll talk to Leslie about you staying in the guest room, but I’m not making any promises. I’ll call you on your cell later, ok?”

Nodding, Harrison continued his work as Preston left. Jimmy was chatting up the high schoolers on the sofas, blatantly hitting on one of the girls who didn’t seem to shun his advances.

Jimmy had worked at this store since he was seventeen, needing some extra cash. He was twenty and in college now, on a full scholarship so he only needed a small income. He had always been a good friend to Harrison, so he let him get away with a lot.

“Jimbo,” he called across the store, “I’m cutting out early, ok?”

He nodded at his boss and returned his attention to the girl. Harrison went to the back and grabbed his jacket before leaving the store. He headed over to Novice; the health club ha had joined a while back. The people knew him there pretty well. Since he’d been kicked out and had no other access to a shower, he’d been there very often as of late. They closed at ten so he would go, work out till 9:30, then get dressed in his clothes for the next day before going to some back parking lot to sleep in his truck, which was not the most comfortable of beds.

He was working on his bench presses (he was up to 195) when his cell phone went off, playing ‘Light and Day’ by the Polyphonic Spree. He put the bar up, thanking the personal trainer that had been spotting him as he answered the phone.

“Harry, you get over here right now!” Leslie’s voice screeched in his ear, “I cannot believe you’ve been living in that disgusting truck for a week! Why the hell didn’t you call us immediately??”

“You know me, Les, I didn’t want to be a burden,’ Harrison replied. He adored his sister-in-law, but she could be more than a little over-bearing at times.

“Ha! Burden! That’s funny; now get your ass over here.”

“I’m at the gym right now, so I’ll come over as soon as I’m finished, ok?” He said, trying to keep getting frustrated.

“Harrison,” Leslie’s voice was harsh and she never ever called him by his full name, “You are finished now. Come home now.”

“Ok,” Harrison replied weakly and hung up. He stood up and started heading to the men’s locker room.

“That your wife?” a guy near him chuckled, walking next to him on the way to the locker room.

“Nah,” Harrison replied with a laugh,” My sister-in-law is a little confused and believes she’s my mother.”

He held the door open as Harrison walked in, “Sounds like you either need to grow a pair or get laid.”

Harrison turned and gave him a coy smile, “Is that an offer?” because it sounded wonderful.

The guy smiled back.